While diabetes is a growing health epidemic that hits home to people of all ages, there is no denying that the older we become, the more susceptible we also grow toward the disease. According to the American Diabetes Association, more than one-fourth of American adults aged 65 or older currently have diabetes, accumulating into nearly 11 million total across the country. Aging is one of the key factors that plays into developing diabetes, but you are never too old to make a health change that can vastly benefit your life. One of those switches can be through simply eating grapes.
Researchers from Wayne State University recently explored whether ingesting the skins of grapes has any health impact on preventing diabetes. The diabetes rate has doubled in the past decade, leading medical research groups to raise a call to action on more studies devoted to potentially finding a cure. The researchers from the college recently received $2.1 million in funding from the National Institute of Health to continue studying in the colleagues’ hypothesis that extracts from the skins of grapes can be used toward patient management of diabetes.
The primary intentions expressed by the researchers to further analyze the grape skins come from previous demonstrations that indicated the extracts of the skins are able to trigger a novel inhibitory activity on hyperglycemia, or high blood glucose levels, which in turn can be used to help control diabetic levels. The grant money awarded to the researchers will now mainly focus on the overall biological effectiveness and safety of using grape skin extract (GSE) as a means of Type 2 diabetes treatment.
Dr. Kequan Zhou, a professor at Wayne State University and lead investigator behind the grant, is optimistic that further studies toward the potential treatment abilities of skins from a fruit that is widely consumed all around the world will vastly change the landscape of diabetic therapy.
“It is hopeful that our research may eventually lead to the successful development of a safe, targeted nutritional intervention to support diabetes prevention and treatment,” Zhou said in a statement. “Our study will provide important pre-clinical data regarding the anti-diabetic mechanisms, biological efficacy and safety of GSE that should facilitate eventual translation into future clinical studies to assess GSE and its components as a safe, low-cost and evidence-based nutritional intervention for diabetes.”
Other ways grapes can improve health
In addition to potentially providing a revolutionary form of diabetic treatment, the health benefits of consuming grapes are vast and plentiful. The abundance of antioxidants primarily found in the grape seeds and skin are the primary reasons for their healthiness, and consuming grapes or even drinking their juice can help in a variety of ways, including:
- Lowering the risk of blood clots
- Preventing damage to cardiovascular blood vessels
- Reducing low-density lipoprotein, otherwise known as “bad” cholesterol
- Maintaining healthy blood pressure levels
Grapes have even been studied to have profound effects on the brain, especially with the elderly. A study published in the British Journal of Nutrition was able to demonstrate the fruit’s ability to improve overall memory functioning in older adults who were already experiencing mild forms of brain cognitive impairment. Not only were grapes also found to reduce the levels of beta-peptides in Alzheimer’s patients, which are amino acids that are heavily abundant in brain samples of those suffering from the disease, but the study also alluded to grapes providing an ability to delay the onset of degenerative neural diseases, which can have a huge impact on a person’s ability to control everything from breathing, balance and heart function.
These are just a few of the reasons why adding this fruit to your daily diet can help boost your body into pristine condition and continue to live a prospering life.
